Page 76 of Hercules

Because he was that smitten puppy for her.

Why deny it anymore? When he knew it now, without a doubt, as the creases across her face caused matching rips in his heart—though in truth, the gashes had begun hours ago. Might as well admit all that too. Fate had simply been more merciful with the cuts at him back then, going slow and steady.

Or so he’d thought.

Those gashes…they’d gouged as fast and deep as now, except he’d never noticed. Had ordered himself not to—or maybe just turned up the painkillers from his psychological drip bag. His stupid self-medication, cleverly disguised as the grief over Meg and the boys, injected liberally every day. And why not? Everyone, including his own brother, had sanctioned the shit. His escape from it all, including his own life. From anything—everything—that was new and terrifying.

But now, he was exposed.

By a gorgeous wildcat who’d refused to accept addiction.

Who, despite her own scary shit and all the pain from it, had chosen to push on and live.

Who, in less than ten hours, was teaching him to do the same again.

So if she stood here in front of him, with her resolute eyes and firm stance, silently declaring she didn’t want to go back and take a pleasure cruise on the Styx, then here was where he’d stay.

“We have to move, Herc. Now. We have to get to Nat before they do.”

Even when she made crazy declarations like that.

Oh dear gods, even when she acted on it right away with a bold sprint onto the airport’s concourse.

But especially as he matched her frantic pace—but had to skid to a stop as she did, halfway across the arrivals waiting area—as a sea of black-suited businessmen emerged from a nondescript door and suddenly but calmly flowed into her way.

A crowd of suits who instantly reminded Herc of mindless geese. Not because of the gray knots in their satin ties or the synchronized duck walks in their patent shoes. This aspect was worse, sprung their seamless formation behind their obvious and arrogant leader. A male to whom they kowtowed with dipped heads and enveloping silence.

When had geese started with the pack alpha thing? And how had this malaka earned it with his slicked hair and slimy swagger?

Questions he immediately longed to retract from his mind.

Because the answers came from the last person he wanted for an information funnel.

His Lois—who again wore her fear like a loud jacket.

No. It was a full cloak now. Because it was all-out terror. The stuff thickened her stare, blanched her skin, and dominated every shiver of her lips, even as they widened into an awful O of shock.

Until the leader of the dour suit bunch came to a sudden stop.

The slickster was quick, trying to pass it off as a planned move. He even threw a shoulder into his new swivel, only to end up looking like a bad Dirty Dancing reboot. But even the power of a Johnny Castle comparison didn’t smooth over the moment.

Had he expected it to?

This was as far from smooth as coals were from diamonds.

“Oje…Ito?”

Especially during the three seconds Lois took to stutter those syllables.

Fuck.

Then the extra one in which Herc’s senses detonated with that fury.

Fuck.

It all made sense. Too much of the shit. Logic he should’ve snapped together faster. So Much faster.

But like any normal dude with a dick still wet from the most memorable night of his life, he’d clung to the fantasy of Yameneko Lance instead of the realities that Lois had all but blasted at him on a psychological billboard. Every fear that’d fed the new hit of her stress. Every awful possibility she’d extrapolated from Wen Steed’s accounts. The twisted ties that were cinched into knots between Rizon and the yakuza.